


Varied Lengths

by SensationalSunburst



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Gladio & Aranea are bros, Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Vignette, World of Ruin, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16544930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SensationalSunburst/pseuds/SensationalSunburst
Summary: When Gladio was little, he had long, flowing hair.OrA series of vignettes detailing the connection of Gladio and his hair.





	Varied Lengths

When Gladio was little he had long, flowing hair. It was always braided. Expertly twisted and tucked in the tradition of Galahd by his mother. She spent hours braiding and unbraiding his hair, soaking in the warm afternoon sunlight or in the crisp morning air, which he realized when he was older was an attempt to get him used to waking up early.

It didn’t matter if he was tired if his mother’s fingers were smoothing through his hair, nails gently scraping against his scalp as she explained for the umpteenth time what each braid meant.

Bravery, family, wisdom and love. Every pattern had a meaning.

Iris was too little, her baby hair too short to braid, but his mother still combed it carefully, humming songs that Gladio never really forgot.

 

When she got sick and lost her hair, Gladio resolved to let his grow as long as hers had been. He would sit for as long as she could sit, basking in her attentions with Iris in his lap, playing with her tiny hands to hear her giggle and squeal. She didn’t understand why Mom was having trouble braiding the more intricate patterns or why their sunbathing had been cut short. Iris was too little to understand why Mom was gone for longer and longer stretches of time. Or why they were spending so much time in the cold, sterile rooms of the hospital. She delighted in Uncle Cor’s attentions as he kept an eye on them in the evenings, even as Gladio drew further and further into himself the thinner his mother got.

In the end, Iris was too young to understand why everyone was crying. Why Gladio had bowed his head so low on the hospital bed and why her mother was hardly able to lift her hand to slide her fingers through his hair. Her other hand was wrapped around Iris herself, holding her against her chest as she fell asleep to the faint, uneven thump of her mother’s heart.

For a moment, and only for a single moment, Gladio was so fiercely jealous of her that it burned his heart. Iris was asleep when their mother breathed in but didn’t breath out. Asleep when she was removed and wrapped in their father’s shaking arms.  Asleep and peaceful when she was handed off to Gladio, still, silent Gladio, and sent home with Jared.

On the way out of the room, Clarus reached out and ran his hand over the top of Gladio’s head. Gladio flinched violently, ducking away from his father’s touch hard enough to nearly trip, only righting himself when Jared steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.

 

When Clarus finally got home, feet made lead with grief, he climbed immediately to Gladiolus's bedroom. Jared was still awake, red eyed and sniffling, and nodded to him as he climbed the stairs. He had two glasses of whiskey poured, one clearly waiting for him, but first he had to check on the kids. Gladio had been unnervingly silent from the second Odessa’s hand had slipped from his head; her pale, slender fingers tangling in his unbraided hair. He’d moved her hand as if it would shatter and held it until he’d been forced to go, but he hadn’t cried.

Clarus knew it was only a matter of time, especially for child as passionate as his son.

When he eased the door open to his son’s bedroom however, his heart stuttered in his chest, fresh tears springing up to press oppressively behind his eyes. Gladio was curled around his baby sister, fast asleep, but his hair…

His long, midnight locks were gone.

Instead, his hair was buzzed tight to his head, uneven and spotty, the mark of an amateur with a shaky hand and electric razor. A quick glance at the bathroom confirmed his suspicions, revealing his razor, still plugged in, surrounded by mostly cleaned up strands of black hair littering the counter and the floor. Clarus choked as his chest crushed in on itself, a black hole of grief threatening to swallow him.

He closed the door, and navigated his way downstairs in darkness.

* * *

By sixteen, Gladio was tentatively growing out his hair. Buzzed close on the sides like he’d kept it for years, he'd switched up the style by growing out a long, floppy top. Clarus tried to see it as progress, but it was hard when his son seemed to have wrapped himself up in training and duty. With the escalation of the war, Clarus was spending less and less time at home, but when he managed to find Gladio during his off hours it was either to find him quietly reading, taking care of his sister or gone from the manor all together. He was, at least, starting to get along with the Prince and taking his duties seriously. He’d even made a good friend in Ignis as well, something that Clarus had been a touch worried about.

* * *

By twenty-two, Gladio’s hair curled past his shoulders, wild as Clarus’s had been when he’d left on a similar journey. He never braided it again, despite learning a variety of fashionable and complicated twists for his sister. Instead, his son preferred half-buns and ponytails, although he did, on occasion, allow Iris to practice on his hair.

* * *

The night before they left, Clarus called Gladio to his study after dinner and poured him two fingers of his finest whiskey. The boy didn’t have the taste for it yet, but he drank it stoically, trying - for Clarus’s sake- to enjoy it. Clarus spent hours telling him stories. He told him of his own eventful youth, of his own experiences taking care of a rebellious prince. He told him of his time beyond the wall, of Gahlad and his mother’s wild spirit.

When morning dawned he told him how much he was loved and wished him luck.

And as the Regalia sailed away over the blacktop, he hoped his son was ready.

* * *

The newspaper felt like fire in his hands and the hair brushing against his neck, like knives. He couldn’t stand the feeling of it dangling against his shoulders, shielding his ears from the sun. Phantom fingers brushed over his head that night, curling in the shorter hair near his temples, lifting the longest strands as if to twist them into braids.

The next morning, he pulled it into a bun, high up off his neck, and left it there for two weeks.

Ignis said nothing for three days, began shooting him concerned looks after a week and gently pulled him aside after dinner after two.

Noctis and Prompto were engrossed in a game of King’s Knight, hissing and cheering at each other in turns. It was the first time he’d seen Noctis smile since that morning at Galdin, so he and Ignis had decided to leave them to play for a little while longer.

“Gladio.” Ignis said, voice quiet and gentle and heavy. They were seated on the edge of concrete to the side of the motel, just barely out of the glow of the anti-demon floodlights ringing the parking lot.

Gladio said nothing, but hung his head, letting the weight that had fallen on his shoulders finally weigh them down. He heard a click as Ignis unsnapped his gloves and set them aside and then there were fingers in his hair, releasing it to fall about his face. Ignis slipped off the concrete shelf to stand before Gladio, taller than him for once.

“I’m so sorry.” Ignis said. Slowly, as if Gladio were a spooked horse, he lifted his bare fingers and carefully carded them through his hair, dull nails dragging across his scalp. Gladio’s next breath caught in his throat, stuttering through a sorrow so potent that it punched the air from his lungs. He hardly recognized the sound he made next as his own, the deep groan too raw to be anything he’d ever allow from himself outside the battlefield.

“It’s alright,” Ignis muttered, drawing his hands from the nape of Gladio’s neck to his shoulders. He tugged gently and Gladio fell forward into him, his forehead pressed against Ignis’s sternum as a fine tremble started up in his knees and traveled up his body, strengthening until it shook loose the tears in his eyes. He managed to stay quiet, but the harder he held in his sobs, the harder her shook, but it was a payoff he was willing to live with. Through it all, Ignis ran a palm, only slightly shaking, up and down his back until he bent forward and curled himself around Gladio, hands digging just shy of too tight into his sides.

And if Gladio felt tears dropping onto the back of his neck, he never mentioned it.

* * *

In Altissia, the vengeful waves of Leviathan weighed his hair down until it felt like fingers wrapped around his throat.

The feeling remained even when his hair had dried.

* * *

“You know,” Aranea said, leaning over the back of her camping chair, “I could braid that mane for you, if you want.” She wiggled her fingers, bare of their armor, at him with a smirk.

She was unprepared for the look she got in return as Gladio snapped his head up with an audible crack to look at her. The whetstone in his hand stuttered, falling still against the broadsword carefully balanced in his lap. He look startled, the ghost of _something_ flickering in his eyes like the reflection of the haven’s fire. He blinked and it was gone, as was the tension in his shoulders.

“Sure,” He said, “If you want.”

Aranea smiled, and pulled her chair around to sit behind him, pulling her legs up to sit crossed legged above him. She pulled her brush from her bag hanging from the back of the chair and took gentle fingers to the tangled mess of his ponytail.

She worked in silence for a few minutes, the only other sound beside the popping of the fire being the rhythmic, almost hypnotizing sound of whetstone over steel. After removing the worst of the knots, she began to to brush it out, working the obsidian strands back up to a shine. It was only when she began to section his hair out that he spoke up.

“My mother used to braid my hair.” He said.

“My mother is the one who taught me to braid.” Aranea replied. “Basic braids mostly, less decorative and more for keeping your hair back while leaping, but…”

“I never learned how to do her braids,” He said, “They were Galahdian.”

“Yeah? Ris said you used to braid hers when she was little,” Aranea said, she tied off one braid and started on the other side of his head.

“Oh yeah, studied up from magazines.” Gladio let out a huff of a laugh, and Aranea counted the sound as a win. Gladio had been looking off, gaunt and paler than usual with a stress around his eyes that made him look far older. They were three years into the Dark and yes, things were _bad,_ but they were getting power up and running, people were adapting.

“I let her practice on me and look how good she is at it,” Gladio said, nostalgia thickening his throat, “She doesn’t need me at all anymore.”

Aranea tugged little harder than necessary as she began to weave the three braids she’d already completed together. “Get it together, kid, everyone grows up but they never stop needing their family.”

“Ah! Alright! Alright!”

* * *

Seven years into the Dark and Talcott called Ignis to let him to know that Gladiolus had returned from the supply escort and was on his way up. Ignis cracked the oven, checking the time left on his pie by smell, and took out two mugs for coffee.

Ten minutes later, with a short, identifying knock (One, one-two, one) Gladio let himself in. His steps were slow, heavier than usual, but Ignis couldn’t hear a limp or the sound of his leather sleeves swishing against his torso. His hands then, were stuffed in his pockets. In his mind’s eye, Ignis could imagine the slouched, unhappy posture, weighed down with exhaustion of more than one kind.

“Welcome back,” Ignis said, moving towards where the sound of his footsteps had stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, “In a few minutes we’ll have pie. Would you like some coffee?”

“Uh, yeah.” Gladio’s voice cracked straight down the middle and Ignis straightened, pausing with his hands lifted halfway to Gladio’s face.  

“Are you hurt? Talcott didn’t mention any difficulties.” Ignis said. His hands changed course and went to Gladio’s chest instead, as always unsettled by the weight that he had lost. Gladio kept up with his training regime, they all did, but what was once bulk had turned into leaner muscle as sources of protein dwindled. Ignis’s hands traveled up his chest and around his shoulders, feather light, as Gladio seemed to melt into the touch.

“I’m okay,” Gladio said, clearing his throat, “Just tired.”

Ignis’s hands mapped out his arms and hands anyway, for his own sake of mind, but Gladio’s limp squeeze of his fingers, where he’d normally lace them together, was alarming. Ignis’s scared fingertips edged up and over his stubble, tracing the line of his jaw, the too sharp jut of his cheekbones. His thumbs padded gently over the bags, larger than he remembered, under his eyes and over the intersecting scars on his face. It was when he moved to caress his neck that he noticed.

“Gladio.” Ignis said, stepping forward again, effectively eliminating the space between them as his fingers closed on the empty air where his hair had once flowed. Up from the base of his neck, Ignis moved unsteady fingertips over the scrape of freshly buzzed hair, fear like ice in his veins. It was only slightly mollified when it found a nest of longer strands near the top of his head.

He had cut it into an approximation of the cut he had as a teenager.

“I’m sorry, Iggy.” Gladio sighed, and Ignis moved to grip his shoulders at the defeat bubbling in the back of his throat.

“ _Don’t you dare_ , Gladiolus Amicitia.” Ignis growled, “Don’t you dare give up.”

Gladiolus shoulders shuddered and he bent forward, pressing his face into the junction between Ignis’s neck and shoulders, breath uneven against his skin.

“Cor-” He swallowed, allowing Ignis to crowd him backwards to the couch until they both fell onto it. “Cor literally told me I was grounded.”

Gladio’s hands went up to Ignis’s waist as he climbed into his lap, pulling Gladio’s head into his chest.

“I’m so tired, Ignis.” He whispered.

“Then rest,” Ignis said, reigning in his fear ignited fury, “Stay here, with me.”

Gladio’s hands wrapped fully around his waist and Ignis felt him nod.

 

An hour later, after Ignis had forced Gladio into the shower and then into bed, Prompto quietly let himself in after tapping in his knock. (One, one-two-three, one) He quietly set his boots by the door, removing his jacket and belt before shuffling into the kitchen to wrap his arms around Ignis’s waist from behind, pressing his face into Ignis’s spine.

“He’s here, right?” Prompto asked, voice rough and shredded.

“Yes,” Ignis said, pausing his chopping to place his hand atop Prompto’s, “Sleeping.”

“He didn’t dodge, Iggy,” Prompto whispered, quiet with terror, “He showed up with that… with that _haircut_ and he didn’t even try to dodge an Iron Giant. Cor-” A shiver rocked through him and Ignis turned, heart thudding in his chest to wrap Prompto in his arms.

“Cor knocked him out of the way. Iggy, he- Ignis, he looked so _disappointed_.”

“It will be alright,” Ignis said, “I promise.”

* * *

While Ignis cooked their final dinner together, Noctis reached out and rubbed a strand of Gladio’s hair between his fingertips, smiling. It’s so odd, he thought, that he knews this stranger’s face so well. It was like he could see the prince overlaid over the king, almost the same and yet somehow so different.

“It’s gotten so long.” Noctis said.

“It’s a pain,” Gladio replied, “Gets in my mouth sometimes.”

“Well, at least you decided to grow this out instead of growing out your beard. I couldn’t deal with both of you with that… thing on your face.” Noctis laughed when Prompto sputtered indignantly.

“Hey! It took _months_ to perfect this, it’s a hit!” He cried.

“My dear Prompto,” Ignis drawled, “Even I can see how bad it is.”

Gladio figured that laughter wasn’t a bad way to end his final night.

* * *

In the end, his hair tie couldn’t hold up to the ferocity of their battle. Iris had made it for him, embroidering tiny skulls in the black fabric, but a close swipe by an imp sliced it cleanly from his head, taking a chunk of his hair with it. He dispatched the imp cleanly and sacrificed a long, heaving breath to look at the torn sliver of fabric at his feet.

Iris would be furious.

And when he fell to stone steps of the Citadel at last, just in time to witness a blinding flash of light erupt from the building and burn away the deamons still advancing on him, and him alone, he regretted taking out Aranea’s braids.

Maybe.

Maybe then he could have gone on a little longer.

 

(“He should have waited,” Iris sobbed later, pulling an errant strand of hair from Gladio’s slack lips. He always hated when it got in his mouth, it must have been driving him crazy. “He should have- I would have braided it!”

Aranea, crouched beside her, slung an arm around her shoulder and for the first time in years didn’t bother to wipe away the tears.)

* * *

“Great! Now, take the top two strands, yup, just like that, and we're going to twist them together.”

“Ow!”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Noctis.”

“Worry not, Luna, he's always been tender headed, as they say.” Ignis said from somewhere on his right. Gladio could feel his arm lightly brushing against his own as he worked.

“All that gel meant he hardly ever brushed it.” Prompto snorted. A kick against the bottom of Gladio's foot indicated they the blonde has shifted again.

“Please sit still, Prompto.”

“Sorry, Iggy.”

“You can't talk shit to me about gel, chocobo butt!” Noctis hissed.

“My hair does not look like a chocobo butt! Take it back!”

The sun was warm on his face, but the warmth he felt inside was something wholly different. It was a contentment so strong it made his eyelids too heavy to lift, his arms too cumbersome to move. The legs he was leaning against we're too comfortable, the grass too soft, the breeze too cool to do anything but surrender himself to the gentle scrape of fingernails against his scalp.

“Now,” His mother said from above him, calm and happy despite the bickering, “We're going to braid the twist in.”

“Aulea, my love, perhaps a bit gentler.”

“I'm being gentle,” She replied testily from somewhere across the circle, “You're just being a baby.”

Gladio sighed and relaxed.

There were fingers in his hair.


End file.
